Quick audio recording tips for multimedia. And a bunny.
Written by David White
Get a decent audio recorder. You don’t have to spend much. See.
Get a decent card or three to go in it. Not that sort. Don’t forget the batteries.
Don’t worry about extra microphones for now. Especially that one.
Record in uncompressed WAV, nothing else.
Get some over the ear headphones, (mmm, they’re nice…) stop worrying about your barnet. In ear doesn’t cut it.
Find a good story.
Find interesting people who are passionate talkers about said story.
Take said person somewhere quiet where you can sit down and have a chat for 10 minutes.
Pay close attention to background noise and sounds such as air conditioning, trains, sirens, echoes etc. Try to minimise them by choice of environment.
Sit at the side of said individual, not in front of.
Hold your new gadget a hands span away from their mouth, below their chin, out of their eyeline. Hold it carefully, don’t fidget.
Put your bins on, adjust your recording level to as high as possible without clipping or distortion.
Do not forget to press record on your new gadget. Repeat…do not forget to press record.
Do not confuse audio monitoring with recording, it is very easily done.
Ask a question, then shut up. Do not interrupt mid sentence, do not make umm and aaah sounds in encouragement.
Do not fart loudly during recording. Do not fart at all during recording in fact.
Make eye contact and use body language such as nodding to encourage your subject.
Seperate your audio gathering from your picture taking.
Put as much effort into your audio as you do your pics.
Use Adobe Audition (better) or Audacity (free) to edit your audio.
Enter the World Press multimedia awards, win, then retire on the proceeds. Job’s a good ‘un. Cough.
Then come on a duckrabbit training to find out how to really join the dots…
Discussion (8 Comments)
You forgot something to join the dots with…….. this should probably do the job reasonably well I expect:
http://www.pianki.com/Tibaldi-Bentley-Crewe-Limited-Edition-18ct-White-Gold-Fountain-Pen_p_3514.html
Ouch. Does using that make your writing better?
Only where big fat cheques are concerned!
Good. Short, sharp and to the point on things that are easy to forget.
Please sir, please can I edit with Amadeus?
Of course Jeremy, if it makes you happy. I do like to keep you happy 🙂
“Do not confuse audio monitoring with recording, it is very easily done.”
Ah. Yes. guilty of that one.
Oh, and those headphones are nice too.
Do you recommend using Soundtrack to edit audio? In my experience, this program works great. Why do you prefer the other ones? I am completely guilty of “ooh”ing and “aah”ing during interviews, something I definitely need to work on. What about situations where you have to record multiple sounds (say, if you’re interviewing a band member during a loud band practice?) Is this bunny meant to imply that good sound really connects the dots for digital storytelling?